


I Need You More Than Want You (and I Want You For All Time)

by calavarna



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: (or at least the preview), Alec Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, Communication, Discussion of Immortal Alec Lightwood, Episode: s03e05 Stronger Than Heaven, Episode: s03e06 A Window Into An Empty Room, Established Relationship, Fluff, Immortality, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, Magnus Bane Deserves Nice Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 07:29:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14420535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calavarna/pseuds/calavarna
Summary: Magnus keeps a small box locked away in his desk drawer.aka Magnus Bane really loves Alec Lightwood and has a box to prove it.





	I Need You More Than Want You (and I Want You For All Time)

**Author's Note:**

> It’s been a very long time since I’ve written anything at all but Shadowhunters (and Malec in particular) now owns my soul. I am living for the jokes about Alec wanting to put everything he's ever touched in the box and I wanted to write my own take on that but somehow my brain decided to take it seriously.

Magnus keeps a small box locked away in his desk drawer. 

The key is in his jewelry box, attached to a thin leather cord that can loop around his neck or wrist, but he never wears it for fear of losing it. It’s a heavy thing, tarnished bronze and almost as old as he is, one end angular and chiselled, the other an elaborate knot of metal that digs into his palm every time he uses it.

Magnus waits until Alec is dead to the world, all sprawled limbs and soft snores that burn hot on his shoulder with every exhale, then shakes off the tendrils of sleep that wrap around him and threaten to drag him down into Morpheus’ realm. He slides out from under Alec’s dead weight, pausing to place a feather-light kiss on his forehead, and pads over to fetch the key, light of foot and tender of heart. Gentle hands lift the jewelry box’s lid, a wisp of magic quieting the hinge, old and worn from a century of use. Alec rolls over in bed and Magnus pauses, his breath held tight in his chest, until Alec settles and curls around a still-warm pillow, a murmur on his lips.

Magnus smiles, looking down at his lover with a tenderness that takes years off his age. He’s immortal, both blessed and doomed to live a preternaturally long life, and it shows in his eyes, if not his face, but Alexander reminds him of what it feels like to be young. When Alec unlocked something inside him, it lit a spark that will burn for the rest of his days.

He’s been in love before, of course he has. More times than most Warlocks, even. There’s something about that rush of attraction, the longing for someone who’s only an arm’s length away, that makes falling in love worthwhile. And he never quite falls out of love, even when he should and even when it causes him more heartache than any loss or breakup ever could. His heart loves fiercely and absolutely and, when it comes to an end, he whittles his memories down to a single object and holds on to it with a quiet desperation that slowly turns to fond memories of days gone by.

But not this time.

This time Magnus will remember everything.

He’s not even sure why he wants to remember everything. To an immortal, memories are a currency with no value, a limitless resource where supply far outstrips demand and one memento is worth more than many when his memories buy grief and sorrow. Alexander, though. Alexander is worth the pain.

Magnus creeps toward to door, feet silent on the rug-lined floor. The apothecary is 37 steps away from his bedroom; he counted one day in a fit of restlessness that had him pacing from room to room, desperately seeking a cure to the melancholy that ran through his veins. In the end, Alec proved a suitable distraction – if also the cause of his displeasure – but he mapped the loft with his feet that day. It’s dark and quiet in the loft, with a peace that only the middle of the night can bring, but he doesn’t need a light to guide him.

Magnus isn’t one for dwelling on the past, not when the present offers such satisfaction and the future promises even more, but he’s always had an appreciation for sentimentality. Perhaps that’s why he’s sneaking around at three in the morning and retrieving a napkin that he hastily slipped in between the pages of a book earlier. Alexander had been describing a previously unseen demon over dinner – burgers in the East Village – and he sketched a picture of it on an unused paper napkin. He’s no artist, not in the way Clary is, but it’s clear enough that this is no ordinary demon. And even clearer that it’s risen from Edom but Magnus will deal with that later.

For now, he unlocks his desk drawer and takes out the box, holding it to his chest for a moment. When he opens it, his eyes set upon the contents like they’re water and he’s dying of thirst. He drinks in the memories, each one hopelessly mundane but more important than any story or legend.

A cloth stained with blood, unnecessary but overwhelmingly endearing. A small black gift bag, bearing Kanji that he can’t read. A couple of white petals, taken from the wedding that wasn’t and pressed and dried. A cardboard coaster from their first date at the Hunter’s Moon, stale-smelling and stained with spilled beer. 

They’re things that Alec won’t miss, won’t even realise they’re anything but junk, and maybe that’s why Magnus keeps them. It’s easy to remember the big things but it’s the little things that he’ll miss when life demands its inevitable price.

He adds the napkin to the box and lowers the lid, returning it to the drawer. A turn of the key and the lock falls into place and he’s done for the night.

***

Sometimes Alec stirs when Magnus rolls over, ready to throw off the covers and immerse himself in memories of the near past. On those nights he’s content to remain in bed, snaking an arm around Alec to hold him as he lingers in the space between sleep and wakefulness. He waits until Alec’s breaths even out, slow and deep, then he props himself up on one elbow to look at his lover. He’s beautiful like this, messy hair and dark eyelashes stark against the fragile skin under his eyes, sleeping with a peace that smooths out the worried lines on his face.

Alexander Lightwood. The man who holds his heart. The one who will never be one memory among many.

Other times, Alec wakes completely, a hitch in his breath the first sign of wakefulness that gives Magnus no choice but to remain in bed but, on those days, there’s no place he’d rather be. His magic burns hot under his skin, desperately seeking an outlet, and Alec takes his hand and threads their fingers together, accepting the trickle of blue magic that Magnus can’t contain. It wraps around their joined hands, loops and knots that bind them as one.

He’s almost positive Alec has never seen a handfasting ceremony, doesn’t know the significance of Magnus’ magic going rogue and acting on his base instincts, the deepest parts of him that he keeps buried to protect his heart and soul. His magic fades, sinking into their skin, the bond unbroken and Magnus lets go of Alec’s hand.

He rolls on top of Alec, bracing both arms on either side of his head and leans down to capture his mouth in a fervent kiss that promises a lifetime. They rock slowly against each other, movements in sync at first but growing erratic as they approach completion. Magnus buries his face in Alec’s neck when he comes, the tendons straining under his mouth as he bites at the Deflect rune, not enough to hurt or leave a mark but enough to make Alec keen. A bead of sweat runs down Alec’s neck and pools at his collarbone and Magnus chases it with his tongue, lapping it up as Alec lets out a low moan and finally spills over between them.

Magnus doesn’t need a physical reminder of those memories.

Slowly but surely, he adds to the box until its seams threaten to split under the volume of its contents. A ticket stub from a movie, the first time Alec ever watched a film on the big screen, awed eyes shining in the dark. The cork from a bottle of Bordeaux they shared on a balcony overlooking the Eiffel Tower. A couple of pages of Alec’s handwriting that’s somehow messy and neat at once, sloppy letters that form straight, uniform sentences. The broken string from Alec’s bow, severed in a battle with Ravener demons that nearly cost him his life.

Even the spatula. That stupid spatula that triggered the closest thing they’ve ever had to a fight.

If Alec notices these things disappearing, he doesn’t let on.

Now, though, Alec’s not there when he wakes and Magnus heart threatens to burst out of his chest. The box is almost impossible to find but Alexander does impossible things every day. He’s uniting Shadowhunters and the Downworld, he’s inspiring a new generation of Shadowhunters to greatness and teaching the older generations that change is nothing to fear. He’s proving that a single person can be a leader, lover, brother, Parabatai. He looks impossible in the eye and says _not today._

_He loves you,_ his brain supplies, but Magnus banishes that thought back to the depths where it belongs. Alec has said it himself, of all the (impossible, dangerous, reckless) things he does, loving Magnus is the easiest.

Of all the people Magnus has loved, Alec is the easiest to love.

He climbs out of bed with a groan and shrugs on his silk bathrobe, not bothering to tie the belt, and pokes his head out into the living room.

Alec’s on the balcony looking out at the city, fully dressed except for his boots that he left by the door earlier. He turns when Magnus steps outside, leaning against the low stone wall. He’s got a fragment of stained glass in his hands, bright and pretty, spinning it between his fingers like one of those toys the youths of today loved for five minutes before moving on to something else (and, okay, Magnus owned a couple too).

“Going somewhere?” Magnus asks as he drifts over to stand next to Alec, their shoulders brushing. 

“Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“Well that was as clear as mud.” Magnus arches an eyebrow at Alec. “Want to try that again?”

“I couldn’t sleep so I was gonna go for a run but, I don’t know, I guess I got distracted.” He’s still spinning the glass and, up close, Magnus can see the jagged edges that come within a fraction of an inch of slicing into Alec’s skin.

“What’s that?” He’s curious, more so because Alec’s up in the middle of the night, but his magpie brain latches on to the shiny new object. The shiny new _Alec_ object.

“This? It’s just a bit of broken glass. Jace broke one of the windows in my office,” – Alec raises a hand when Magnus opens his mouth to ask the obvious question – “Don’t ask, I have no idea what he was doing but I was cleaning up and for some reason I kept this piece. I left it in my pocket and only remembered it when I came out here. I guess it reminds me of you.”

“May I?” Magnus asks, and takes it without waiting for a reply. It’s yellow with a hint of green, just like his eyes, with a stark black line passing through the center and he runs a finger along the sharp edge. Magnus has been in Alec’s office more times than he can count, and he knows he’s seen the shard as part of a whole before, but his brain can’t quite place it and he thinks, _oh._ He’s forgetting things already.

“It’s… from part the window behind your desk?” It’s a guess more than anything. It’s definitely not from the obnoxiously large Angel in the window, if only because Alec would be complaining a lot more if Jace had broken that.

“Yeah. You know the part up high? Over the Angel? I don’t know what Jace was doing up there but he took out a couple of the Enlighten runes.”

_Enlighten._ A prayer to the Angel to guide them with grace. An entreaty to light their way.

A plea for clarity that Magnus desperately needs.

“Can I keep this?” Magnus doesn’t know why he asks instead of surreptitiously stealing it whenever Alec isn’t looking but the words spill out before he can stop them. 

“Sure.” Alec gives him a strange look, like he’s torn between making a snarky reference to keeping it in the box and questioning Magnus’ motives, but he just shrugs. “I was only going to throw it away so it’s yours if you want it.”

“I do,” Magnus says, and tightens his grip around the sharp shard. It doesn’t cut his skin but it hurts enough to jolt him from the thoughts that threaten to carry him away. “How about we go back to bed?”

Alec looks out over the balcony again, his eyes roaming over the lights and landmarks of the city they both call home. There’s a soft smile on his face as he turns and envelops Magnus in a hug, his arms long and tight and strong. He buries his face in Magnus’ shoulder. 

“Yeah,” he says, voice muffled against the smooth silk of the bathrobe. He pulls back, straightens, shrugs off his jacket. “You coming?”

“I’ll be there in a minute.” Magnus has his hands behind his back in an imitation of Alec’s parade rest and he flicks a couple of fingers to summon the desk drawer key from his jewelry box. “I want to put this away first.”

***

The apothecary is shrouded by shadows in the low lamplight. Potions ingredients aren’t something to be feared but in the deep of night Magnus’ mind sometimes plays tricks on him. The scurrying sounds of reanimated beetles, a desiccated Grindylow head wailing inside a jar, poisonous vines creeping up the walls, but Magnus doesn’t have time to pay attention to the nonexistent creatures in the shadows.

Sliding behind his desk, he unlocks the drawer and takes out the box. It’s overflowing, the lid no longer closing all the way as the contents spill over the sides and fall to the floor. Magnus kneels down, placing the box on the floor and retrieves his fallen memories. Keychain, pencil, paper crown.

A snap of his fingers, and the box doubles in capacity but not size. He needs enough space to last a lifetime and privacy to last even longer. Alec’s observant and, worse, curious to a fault, even if Magnus can’t fault his snooping without feeling like a hypocrite. If the circumstances were reversed, he would do the same.

“I was thinking,” Alec says from the doorway and Magnus looks up sharply, the box resting on the floor and the key still in his hand, (thankfully, gratefully, by the grace of God-fully) hidden beneath the thick wood of his desk. “I don’t know why you’d want a piece of the Institute. You only tolerate that place because I’m there.”

That’s… true. Very true, and his reply hangs unspoken on his lips, held back by a wave of anxiety that leaves his mouth dry and his pulse racing. He’s caught.

Alec must sense the mood in the room because he perches on the far corner of the desk, facing the door with his back to Magnus, and waits. Politely ignoring Magnus’ emotions when all his instincts scream at him to help is something that clearly discomforts him, the line of his back as stiff as it had been the first time Magnus raised the issue, but he sits there, still and quiet in the shadowed room.

Magnus doesn’t often get like this, least of all with Alec, but he’s has spent several lifetimes battling with his own mind and he knows how to win. Silence and comfortable solitude, safety and a stiff drink but he’ll forego that for now. _Normal_ people don’t drink in the middle of the night, apparently.

“I won’t end up as some trinket in a box,” Alec says eventually, when Magnus’ breathing evens out to a soft and steady pace, and he has no idea how right he is. He will never be put away with the others, not quite lost to the passage of time but requiring an object to boost fading memories. He will never be reduced to a single memento among dozens of others.

“Of course you won’t.” Magnus doesn’t mean to sound condescending but Alec takes it that way, judging by the sharp intake of breath.

“I’m never going to leave you,” Alec says, swinging his legs around to face Magnus and looking him straight in the eye, his chin jutting out with bullish determination. “You won’t need a box.”

The key grows warm in Magnus’ hand, hidden beneath the desk and he banishes it back to his jewelry box with a subtle flick of his fingers. He props his elbows on the desk, steepling his fingers together. “I would take on all of Edom itself if it meant I could stay with you forever. But allow me my idiosyncrasies. Sometimes I need something to remember people by.”

“No, you don’t get it. I’m _never_ going to leave you. I don’t know how but I’ll find a way even if I have to make Simon turn me. Or I'll find a potion or something, one has to exist, right?” There’s a flush to Alec’s cheeks, a rising heat that’s beautiful in the low light but Magnus forces himself to look away.

“You…” Can’t? Shouldn’t? Won’t? Magnus isn’t sure. Immortality isn’t something humans can comprehend. It takes vampires decades to come to terms with their fate and he knows Warlocks who’ve hidden away for centuries, unable to deal with the changing world. Magnus himself missed the dawn of the Industrial Revolution while alone with his thoughts on a small island in the Pacific. Admittedly, returning to London to discover steam powered engines and running water had been a pleasant surprise.

“That’s a big decision,” he says finally. Eternal life opens up every possibility, then forces you down a path of its own choosing.

“I know. But it’s mine to make.”

It is. Nothing can stop Alexander Lightwood when he puts his mind to something.

“I know,” Magnus echoes, his voice half a tone lower from exhaustion. “But we have to talk about it at some point.”

Not now; neither of them is up to a weighty discussion at the present and it’s something they have to get right. It will be new for both of them, and no doubt enlightening, and it’s almost a relief that Magnus will go into this conversation no more knowledgeable than Alec. He has experience and advice to offer, certainly, but they’re both flying blind in the face of something new and strange. He’s had relationships with other immortals before, even loved some of them, but he’s never contemplated spending eternity with another person. Even with Camille he knew, deep down, that their promise of forever would last only until she found another willing fool.

Magnus lets his mind drift, going to the past and the present and the future all at once.

He can share a life with Alec. 

He can share many lives with him.

His heart thumps in his chest, strong but steady and, for the first time in as long as he can remember, he looks forward to the next beat.

Alec gestures toward Magnus’ desk, drawing him from his thoughts. “You done here?”

Magnus snaps the box lid shut and places it back in its drawer. “Yes,” he says. “I’m done.”

***

Magnus waits until Alec is dead to the world and slips out of bed, less cautious this time but just as quiet. His jewelry box makes a sharp creak when he opens it and Alec’s slow, deep breaths stutter to a halt before resuming as harsh exhales, mumbled words on his lips and a crease on his forehead.

The key is where it always is, buried beneath rings and bracelets and necklaces, and Magnus picks it up by the thin leather cord, careful not to let it catch on any of his other pieces as he lifts it up. He returns to their bed and kneels down on Alec’s side, chasing away the low murmurs with a soft kiss. He loosens the bow that holds the cord's ends together and runs the strip of leather between his fingers a couple of times, feeling the rough drag against his skin, then ties it together once more in a permanent knot. The loop is large, and fits easily over Alec’s head, falling neatly to rest around his neck when Magnus uses gentle hands to lift his head off the pillow and slip the necklace around it.

And, with another kiss, Magnus lays him back down on the bed.

Magnus keeps a small box locked away in his desk drawer. The key rests over Alec’s heart.


End file.
